Freight railroading has really taken off. Some small railroads have taken
over little-used and abandoned tracks and have made tem profitable I have
written about a small railroad in eastern PA called the Reading and
Northern. It was largely built using trackage the large railroads deemed
unnecessary. Now it sells trackage rights to CSX, NSC and CP on its tracks
running between Wilkes-Barre and Lehighton, PA. This is in addition to its
own profitable operations. The company is run like a family business, but no
one is related. Very cool!!
I interviewed their manager of passenger operations. They run tourist trains
out of Jim Thorpe, PA on the weekends. He had an idea of running weekend
shoppers trains to and from area towns. However, in order to serve some
interested area towns, he would need to run trains on NSC tracks. NSC will
not permit passenger service on its tracks except where AMTRAK agreements
are in place. It is a shame because rail is so much more energy efficient
than road travel.
----- Original Message -----
From: <jon@dakota-truck.net>
To: <dakota-truck-moderator@bent.twistedbits.net>
Sent: Thursday, February 07, 2008 6:51 PM
Subject: DML: Trains (was: Made in China) and still offtopic :-)
>
> "Andy Levy" <andy.levy@gmail.com> wrote:
> [...]
>> If he could hop on a train, it'd be better all around. But even for
>> those shorter trips, we need faster trains to make them viable in most
>> peoples' eyes, because the average speed is still much lower than the
>> interstate.
>
>
> Its too bad, really. Trains have a rather intangible romantic
> quality about them. I'm a big fan of the various travel series done
> by Michael Palin with the BBC. (Around the World in 80 Days, Sahara,
> etc. - there are quite a few of them.) Anyway, he is something of a
> trainspotter, and in those series he does a lot of travelling on
> trains. (Mostly because that is the best way to get around in many
> countries.)
>
> I definitely don't think that they should be artificially propped
> up ala Amtrak, but I would bet the private sector could make them work
> again in at least some respects. (IIRC, it was the government's
> involvement which hastened rail's demise in the first place. I know
> I'm sounding like a broken record on that theme, but I'm positive I
> read that somewhere.)
>
> I haven't studied this topic at all, but it is my impression that
> trains are pretty great as far as freight goes. In fact, I heard a
> commercial the other day which I guess was intended to attract
> customers to trains, I don't recall the exact details since I was only
> paying half attention, but I *think* they said that they could move a
> ton of cargo 1,000 miles on one gallon of fuel. (The basic jist of
> the commercial was to compare the economy of fright trains to
> automobiles and trucking.) Anyway, I don't know if those figures I
> gave are the correct ones, but whatever they were it was pretty
> impressive. I've been doing some work in a house near a set of tracks
> that run through WNY between Cleveland and Buffalo, and have been
> surprised at their frequency. There are a LOT of trains going through
> that corridor.
>
> In one of the Michael Palin travelogues I mentioned above, he takes
> a bullet train in Japan, which was quite impressive. 150mph, I
> believe, though it seemed more like an airline experience than an old
> fashioned train journey. :-) It would no doubt take a considerable
> infrastructure investment (privately funded, please!) :-) to be able
> to handle those kinds of trains here, but its interesting to think
> about.
>
> --
> -Jon-
>
> .- Jon Steiger -- jon@dakota-truck.net or jon@jonsteiger.com -.
> | '96 Kolb Firefly, '96 Suzuki Intruder, Miscellaneous Mopars |
> `-------------------------------- http://www.jonsteiger.com --'
>
>
>
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